The Western Conspiracy, Short-sightedness and the Recent Refugee Crises

“Europe will be invaded by thousands of immigrants from Libya. There will be no one to stop them anymore. The Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos if I am toppled from power.”

This is not a prophecy from God, rather it was a warning from no other person than the former Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to the ex-Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair during a telephone conversation with him on 25 February 2011. While the Western world was busy strategizing their plans to use air strikes to topple Colonel Gaddafi, the Islamic militant groups, were on the other hand, fully determined to get rid of Gaddafi, who had become a stumbling block in their attempts to control the North African country and extend their Islamic influence beyond other parts of Africa, including Mali, Cameroon and Nigeria. To the militants, the presence of Col. Gaddafi had prevented them from achieving their Islamic agenda. However, to the Western countries, the former Libyan President had proven too strong and unpredictable to control. The question many Western leaders have failed to answer opening is: to what extent did the killing of Libyan President Colonel Gaddafi contribute to the swarm of refugees and the messy migration nightmare currently experienced in Europe?

I am not here to defend Col. Gaddafi or his human rights records, nor do I accept the argument that the former President of Libya did not provide incredible stability in the region. It was unthinkable during his regime that uncontrollable multitude of refugees would cross via Libya to Europe. Nor would anyone imagine turning Libya into a modern-day slave market by criminal gangs during the Gaddafi regime. Like the former Iraqi strongman President Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi was asked by the West to give up his nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of the economic embargo against his country. Both leaders complied with the request – despite the fact that those Western countries, making the demand are themselves the greatest producers of the same weapons of mass destruction they insisted other countries must give up. Yet, President Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were mercilessly murdered by the Western conspiracy and their countries set on the road of total annihilation and unending instability and lawlessness. Worse still, Gaddafi allegedly injected $6 million to sponsor former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy ’s re-election bid in 2017. Other sources claim the figure is about 50m euros funded within a period of five years. Regardless, immediately after winning his election, Gaddafi whom President Sarkozy referred to as “Brother Leader” was the first head of State to be invited to Paris by Sarkozy, where he was allowed to pitch his Bedouin tent next to the Elysée Palace. Cruelly, the former French President Sarkozy was later, one of the chief architects of the NATO-led military campaign that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi and subsequently resulted in the death of the former Libyan Presidents in 2011. Does Gaddafi’s death bear a similar signature to that of Saddam Hussein’s?

President Muammar Gaddafi might have proved very controversial or “uncontrollable” to many Western leaders, as such, he must be got rid of; however, could the Western leaders be so short-sighted? Did they really think about the strategic and security consequences of their actions? Or were these actions fuelled by mere personal animosities rather than global interest? Let us leave the issues of morality, legality, cruelty, and selfishness aside and look at the decision to get rid of Gaddafi purely from the security point of view. Could the removal of Gaddafi bring security in the region and the world in general? Was the presence of former Libyan head of State of security importance, to say the least, despite his alleged human rights abuses? Former President Gaddafi warned the Western leaders that toppling him would leave a very dangerous vacuum that could consume the whole of Europe. He insisted that without a unified and stable Libya, there would be no one to control countless swarms of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trooping to Europe. Did any of the Western leaders care to listen to Colonel Gaddafi’s prophetic warnings? Not even when it was obvious that the Jihadis were determined to destabilize Libya and exercise their unholy influence beyond the country.

Colonel Gaddafi’s warning was echoed as he fought back to retain the territory he lost to the Jihadis following the Western governments’ air strikes against him. The first sign that his warning was a reality came after more than 1,000 refugees landed on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa in just 12 hours. Did the western world learn any lesson from the sudden arrival of the refugees? Hardly not. Is this the beginning of the present migration crises in Europe?

“They [jihadis] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe.” Former President of Libya Col. Gaddafi in a telephone conversation with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 11.15am on 25 February 2011.

At 3.25pm on the same, Gaddafi went further:

“We are not fighting them, they are attacking us. I want to tell you the truth. It is not a difficult situation at all. The story is simply this: an organization has laid down sleeping cells in North Africa. Called the al-Qaida organization in North Africa… The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11. I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight. Libyan people will die, the damage will be on the Med, Europe and the whole world. These armed groups are using the situation [in Libya] as a justification – and we shall fight them.”

What happened after these calls and urgent warning? Three weeks after the call, carried away by the myopic euphoria of the Arab Spring, the Western countries, headed by former President Barack Obama of the USA, former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy and other Western leaders, used the NATO military might overthrow Gaddafi. Gaddafi was murdered thereafter by his opponents, actively supported and armed by the West. Did the murder of Gaddafi bring stability or democracy to Libya or the region as a whole? What happened to the Gaddafi’s prophecies? Today, Libya has sadly turned into a failed state – the Somalia of North Africa. Europe has experienced the worse migration crises since the world war. Islamic Jihadis have successfully increased their presence and influence both in Libya and around the globe. Terrorists are killing innocent individuals with uncontrollable impunity. New Jihad cells are fearlessly being built and Jihadists are gallantly marching to Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, Nigeria and the rest of Africa to cause mayhem. Arms and ammunition are readily available to lawless terrorists and Islamists, who are determined to inflict maximum causality and cause tragedies on a large scale. The result of this security nightmare: millions of people are forced by terror, drought, food shortage, human traffickers to migrate to Europe and the USA for security and economic reasons. Human trafficking is the order of the day. Welcome to the modern day slavery!

Will millions of refugees storming European borders today definitely come as a surprise to the Western politicians? Perhaps, the migrants would not have come in millions, if the West had listened to what Gaddafi said months before he was brutally executed. In fact, some of these migrants would not be seeking shelter in Europe if their homes were not destroyed as a result of short-sighted aggressive Western policies. We have seen the same sheer conspiracy and an unbelievable myopic strategy in Iraq, Syria is on fire. Somalia is burning. Yemen is on the point of collapse. Millions of refugees are forced to head to Europe and the USA for security and economic reasons. The Western countries which caused the human tragedies are fighting fanatically to prevent these migrants from reaching the Western shores. Europe and the USA are spending billions to tackle the messy situations they created – the same amount that would have been effectively used to provide much need social services and other infrastructures in the West. Can there be a better word to describe the mess in Libya and other countries where the West have woefully failed to change the leadership by force and export democracy at all cost, than a mere strategic nearsightedness?

“Europe will be invaded by thousands of immigrants from Libya. There will be no one to stop them anymore. The Mediterranean will become a sea of chaos if I am toppled from power.”

This is not a prophecy from God, rather it was a warning from no other person than the former Libyan President Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to the ex-Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair during a telephone conversation with him on 25 February 2011. While the Western world was busy strategizing their plans to use air strikes to topple Colonel Gaddafi, the Islamic militant groups, were on the other hand, fully determined to get rid of Gaddafi, who had become a stumbling block in their attempts to control the North African country and extend their Islamic influence beyond other parts of Africa, including Mali, Cameroon and Nigeria. To the militants, the presence of Col. Gaddafi had prevented them from achieving their Islamic agenda. However, to the Western countries, the former Libyan President had proven too strong and unpredictable to control. The question many Western leaders have failed to answer opening is: to what extent did the killing of Libyan President Colonel Gaddafi contribute to the swarm of refugees and the messy migration nightmare currently experienced in Europe?

I am not here to defend Col. Gaddafi or his human rights records, nor do I accept the argument that the former President of Libya did not provide incredible stability in the region. It was unthinkable during his regime that uncontrollable multitude of refugees would cross via Libya to Europe. Nor would anyone imagine turning Libya into a modern-day slave market by criminal gangs during the Gaddafi regime. Like the former Iraqi strongman President Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi was asked by the West to give up his nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of the economic embargo against his country. Both leaders complied with the request – despite the fact that those Western countries, making the demand are themselves the greatest producers of the same weapons of mass destruction they insisted other countries must give up. Yet, President Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were mercilessly murdered by the Western conspiracy and their countries set on the road of total annihilation and unending instability and lawlessness. Worse still, Gaddafi allegedly injected $6 million to sponsor former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy ’s re-election bid in 2017. Other sources claim the figure is about 50m euros funded within a period of five years. Regardless, immediately after winning his election, Gaddafi whom President Sarkozy referred to as “Brother Leader” was the first head of State to be invited to Paris by Sarkozy, where he was allowed to pitch his Bedouin tent next to the Elysée Palace. Cruelly, the former French President Sarkozy was later, one of the chief architects of the NATO-led military campaign that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi and subsequently resulted in the death of the former Libyan Presidents in 2011. Does Gaddafi’s death bear a similar signature to that of Saddam Hussein’s?

President Muammar Gaddafi might have proved very controversial or “uncontrollable” to many Western leaders, as such, he must be got rid of; however, could the Western leaders be so short-sighted? Did they really think about the strategic and security consequences of their actions? Or were these actions fuelled by mere personal animosities rather than global interest? Let us leave the issues of morality, legality, cruelty, and selfishness aside and look at the decision to get rid of Gaddafi purely from the security point of view. Could the removal of Gaddafi bring security in the region and the world in general? Was the presence of former Libyan head of State of security importance, to say the least, despite his alleged human rights abuses? Former President Gaddafi warned the Western leaders that toppling him would leave a very dangerous vacuum that could consume the whole of Europe. He insisted that without a unified and stable Libya, there would be no one to control countless swarms of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trooping to Europe. Did any of the Western leaders care to listen to Colonel Gaddafi’s prophetic warnings? Not even when it was obvious that the Jihadis were determined to destabilize Libya and exercise their unholy influence beyond the country.

Colonel Gaddafi’s warning was echoed as he fought back to retain the territory he lost to the Jihadis following the Western governments’ air strikes against him. The first sign that his warning was a reality came after more than 1,000 refugees landed on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa in just 12 hours. Did the western world learn any lesson from the sudden arrival of the refugees? Hardly not. Is this the beginning of the present migration crises in Europe?

“They [jihadis] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe.” Former President of Libya Col. Gaddafi in a telephone conversation with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 11.15am on 25 February 2011.

At 3.25pm on the same, Gaddafi went further:

“We are not fighting them, they are attacking us. I want to tell you the truth. It is not a difficult situation at all. The story is simply this: an organization has laid down sleeping cells in North Africa. Called the al-Qaida organization in North Africa… The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11. I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight. Libyan people will die, the damage will be on the Med, Europe and the whole world. These armed groups are using the situation [in Libya] as a justification – and we shall fight them.”

What happened after these calls and urgent warning? Three weeks after the call, carried away by the myopic euphoria of the Arab Spring, the Western countries, headed by former President Barack Obama of the USA, former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy and other Western leaders, used the NATO military might overthrow Gaddafi. Gaddafi was murdered thereafter by his opponents, actively supported and armed by the West. Did the murder of Gaddafi bring stability or democracy to Libya or the region as a whole? What happened to the Gaddafi’s prophecies? Today, Libya has sadly turned into a failed state – the Somalia of North Africa. Europe has experienced the worse migration crises since the world war. Islamic Jihadis have successfully increased their presence and influence both in Libya and around the globe. Terrorists are killing innocent individuals with uncontrollable impunity. New Jihad cells are fearlessly being built and Jihadists are gallantly marching to Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, Nigeria and the rest of Africa to cause mayhem. Arms and ammunition are readily available to lawless terrorists and Islamists, who are determined to inflict maximum causality and cause tragedies on a large scale. The result of this security nightmare: millions of people are forced by terror, drought, food shortage, human traffickers to migrate to Europe and the USA for security and economic reasons. Human trafficking is the order of the day. Welcome to the modern day slavery!

Will millions of refugees storming European borders today definitely come as a surprise to the Western politicians? Perhaps, the migrants would not have come in millions, if the West had listened to what Gaddafi said months before he was brutally executed. In fact, some of these migrants would not be seeking shelter in Europe if their homes were not destroyed as a result of short-sighted aggressive Western policies. We have seen the same sheer conspiracy and an unbelievable myopic strategy in Iraq, Syria is on fire. Somalia is burning. Yemen is on the point of collapse. Millions of refugees are forced to head to Europe and the USA for security and economic reasons. The Western countries which caused the human tragedies are fighting fanatically to prevent these migrants from reaching the Western shores. Europe and the USA are spending billions to tackle the messy situations they created – the same amount that would have been effectively used to provide much need social services and other infrastructures in the West. Can there be a better word to describe the mess in Libya and other countries where the West have woefully failed to change the leadership by force and export democracy at all cost, than a mere strategic nearsightedness?